fauxklore

Last week, one of my friends commented that I was the busiest retired person he knew. I do a lot of things, but I also waste a lot of time and am kind of annoyed with myself over how much stuff I have not been getting done. I definitely need to spend more time on housework. And I need to cook real food and get more exercise. Sitting down to write this catch-up is at least something I can check off my to-do list, which is back up around CVS-receipt length.

Celebrity Death Watch: David Foreman was an environmental extremist who co-founded Earth First! Hilary Mantel wrote historical fiction about Oliver Cromwell, including Wolf Hall. Louise Fletcher was an actress who was most famous for playing Nurse Ratched in the movie One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Rita Gardner was an actress who originated the role of Luisa in The Fantasticks. Pharaoh Sanders was a jazz saxophonist. James Florio was the governor of New Jersey in the early 1990’s (and in the U.S. House of Representatives before that). Coolio was a rapper. Stephanie Dabney was a ballerina with the Dance Theatre of Harlem and was particularly famous for performing the role of The Firebird. Jim Lisbet wrote mysteries and poetry. Bill PLante was a long time senior White House correspondent for CBS News. Sachsen Littlefeather rejected an Oscar on behalf of Marlon Brando. Audrey Evans cofounded the Ronald McDonald House Charities. Hector Lopez played baseball and went on to become the first black manager of a AAA minor league team. Al Primo created Eyewitness News. Tiffany Jackson was a basketball player whose career included three WNBA teams and 7 years with Maccabi Ashdod in Israel. Charles Fuller was a playwright, best known for A Soldier’s Play. Peter Robinson wrote detective novels. Lenny Lipton wrote the lyrics to “Puff, the Magic Dragon.” Judy Tenuta was a comedian. Jody Miller was a country singer whose signature song was “Queen of the House,” the comeback to Roger Miller’s “King of the Road.” Ivy Jo Hunter was a Motown songwriter, notable for cowriting “Dancing in the Streets” with Marvin Gaye and Mickey Stevenson. Robert I. Toll cofounded the housing developers Toll Brothers. Grace Gluck was an arts journalist.


Kevin Locke was a Lakota storyteller, flautist, and hoop dancer. He received a number of awards (primarily for music) and was a significant keeper of traditional culture.

Loretta Lynn was a country singer-songwriter and the subject of the movie Coal MIner’s Daughter. She won three Grammy awards.


LJ/DW Death Watch: I learned the other day that Howard Stateman, known on LiveJournal and Dreamwidth as howeird, died last week. He’d had numerous health issues recently and had had surgery in September, so it is not entirely surprising. I assume his sisters will be sorting out his estate. I hope his cat, Spook, and his aquarium fish are being well cared for.

Baseball: While I am on the subject of death, the New York Mets had been my one bright spot in a bleak baseball year. I will spend the post-season cheering for my second favorite team, namely whoever is playing the Yankees. (At the moment, that is the Guardians, who also have the plus of being managed by Terry “Tito” Francona, who led my BoSox to their 2004 and 2007 World Series titles.)

Yom Kippur: Yom Kippur was Wednesday. I did zoom services again, which is not really satisfying. But it did let me sleep later. I did fast, but, overall, I was not very into it this year.

Spaghetti and Matzoh Balls: This is a short film by Rena Strober, which I saw via an on-line screening from the Union for Reform Judaism, with a talk-back afterwards. The short version of the story is that she used to sing at a restaurant in New York called Rao’s. It was a mob hangout and one night one guy objected to her singing and someone else shot and killed him. This ended up in her reconnecting to some aspects of her Jewish upbringing. She wrote and performed a one-person show about this. The movie is based on but not identical to this. It’s an interesting story, with a lot of warmth and a surprising amount of humor, and I’m glad I saw it.

Thursday: Thursday was a completely insane day for me. I had my Global Entry renewal interview in the morning. It took me 45 minutes or so each way on the Metro to get downtown to the Reagan Building, but the actual interview took about 5 minutes. Anyway, I got the acceptance email less than an hour after I got home, even though they told me it would take up to 72 hours. I should get the new card in the mail within a week or two.

My Grimm discussion group is normally on Wednesdays, but moved to Thursday because of Yom Kippur. This session was about the Gold Children, which is an amalgamation of various folk tale tropes. We had an interesting discussion, particularly regarding the ability of children made completely out of gold to move around perfectly normally. As I pointed out, gold is pretty malleable.

That was followed immediately by another zoom meeting. That one was training for the Capital Jewish Food Festival, where I was volunteering on Sunday.

And, then, in the evening I went with my friend Cindy to see Ichabod at Creative Cauldron. We had dinner beforehand at Pizzeria Orso, which is right up the street. The mushroom and olive pizza was good. Their pizza crust is excellent. I also had tiramisu gelato for dessert.

Ichabod: This was a new musical, obviously based on The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. Matthew Conner had a previous attempt at musicalizing this story, but The Hollow, which I saw at Signature Theatre in 2011 was a failure. This reworking (with book by Stephen Gregory Smith) was better, but I still didn’t care much for most of the music. It stuck fairly closely to what I remember of the story, but the music was meh. I might have liked the opening number (“Invocation”) but neither of us could understand the lyrics. I did like two songs - “Clippety, Cloppety” (in which Bram Bones tells the story of the headless horseman) and “Midnight Ride” (which tells the part where Ichabod Crane disappears). But I didn’t think the more romantic pieces worked particularly well. The performers were fine - especially Colum Goelbacker as Ichabod and Bobby Libby as Brom, but the whole thing just didn’t work well for me. I’d have more to say, but they don’t have printed programs and I accidentally deleted the electronic one. I tried to find a link to it on their website but failed. Grr.

Guys and Dolls: As you may have heard me say before, I consider Guys and Dolls to be the best musical of all time. It’s got a witty book, great music, and lively choreography. There was a production of it at the Kennedy Center, as part of the Broadway Center Stage series, which I saw on Friday night. While this was a scaled down production, the cast was, decidedly not scaled down. James Monroe Iglehardt, who played Nathan Detroit, has made numerous Broadway appearances, including winning a Tony for playing the Genie in Aladdin. Jessie Mueller, who played Miss Adelaide, won a Tony for playing Carole King in Beautiful: The Carole King Musical, as well as originating the role of Jenna in Waitress (among other Broadway roles). Sky Masterson was played by Steven Pasquale who was in the recent CSC production of Assassins. And Sarah Brown was played by Philip Soo, who is most famous for playing Eliza Schuyler in Hamilton. By the way, Pasquale and Soo are married in real life, so it’s particularly nice seeing the chemistry between them. The most unconventional bit of casting was Rachel Dratch (of SNL fame and who I recently saw in POTUS) as Big Jule. I want to note the choreography for “Luck Be a Lady Tonight,” in particular, which was exciting and impressive. Anyway, it was an extremely enjoyable evening. And, by the way, the Kennedy Center has actual printed programs available. This is a very limited run (10 performances only), so if you want to see it, get your tickets now for this coming weekend.

By the way, I had dinner before the show at Bandoola Bowl, a new Burmese place in Western Market (a food hall in Foggy Bottom). I got a ginger salad with tofu and lemon dressing, which was absolutely delicious. I will definitely eat there again. Also, the weather was particularly nice, making for an especially enjoyable walk over to the KenCen.

Capital Jewish Food Festival: As I mentioned above, I volunteered at this festival on Sunday. It was the first time they were doing it and things were a bit chaotic. I was assigned to check IDs and give out wristbands (green for over 21, blue otherwise). I was on the first shift (10:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m.) and we pretty much ran out of green wristbands. In retrospect, it would have made sense to have wristbands only for people who were over 21. Volunteers got t-shirts and 3 tasting tickets. By the time my shift finished, several of the vendors had run out of the tasting samples, though there was still plenty of food for sale at most of the vendors. I did get samples of things like bagel chips with lox spread (and a salmon salad from another vendor. I’ve forgotten what my third sample was.) And I bought a turkey sandwich with cole slaw from Corned Beef King for lunch. Anyway, it was definitely crossed so I’d say the event was a success. Also, Michael Twitty gave an interesting talk. One disappointment was that there were only a few kosher-certified vendors.

Murder Mystery Weekend: No, I haven’t gone to one, but I’ve sort of decided I’d like to. I see a few companies that run them but, if anyone I know has done one, I’d love recommendations. Ideally, the venue should be either academic or country house / hotel (not urban). It should be friendly for a single attendee, since none of my friends are likely to want to go along for this. I’m looking for a weekend (Friday night through Sunday brunch looks typical). And I’d like it to be in (in order of preference) Ireland, the UK, or southern U.S.

Any suggestions?

I have been out and about quite a lot over the past couple of weeks. Here is an attempt at catching up. There’s some storytelling stuff, too, which I will write about separately.

Baseball: I am sleep deprived due to Red Sox Stress Syndrome. The playoff against the Source of All Evil in the Universe went well and, after the first game, the BoSox walked all over the Rays, which surprised and delighted me. The ALCS, did not go so well. After an excellent 2nd and 3rd games, my boys collapsed and the Astros are off to the World Series. See you next year.

Leading Jewish Minds at MIT: MIT Hillel runs an interesting lecture series in which Jewish faculty members talk about their work (and Rabbi Fisher provides some Jewish framework for the discussion). The early October talk was by Lotte Bailyn and discussed research on transition to retirement. The basic point is that people need to rearchitect their lives and find a new source of structure when they retire. Flexibility is very important in this. At any rate, I concluded I am mostly doing things wright, though I think I could be more mindful about time management.

IAJGS: The deadline for listening to recorded sessions from the Jewish genealogy conference in August was the first week in October. I didn’t manage to listen to everything I wanted to, but I had time for a few more presentations. The best of those had to do with finding unindexed records, creative methods for finding family members, early photography, and additional sources for death information.

Having Our Say: This play marked the reopening of Creative Cauldron. They are definitely doing things right with respect to COVID protocols - blocking out seats next to, in front of, and behind each ticket (or pod) and requiring proof of vaccination. The friend I went with and I actually bought two seats with an empty one in between, so we had the whole row on one side of the center section. Anyway, the play tells the story of Bessie and Sadie Delany, a pair of Black sister who are looking back from 100+ years. Bessie became a dentist and Sadie a high school teacher (in a white high school, which required some trickery on her part to get the job). Their book was a best-seller, but I admit to not having read it. (The play made me more interested in doing it.) Anyway, it’s a very cozy play. You really feel like you’re visiting their house, listening to them chat. Both Ayesis Clay as Bessie and Lisa Hill-Conley as Sadie were convincing. That is, I really forgot I was watching a play and, even when there were a few possibly fumbled lines (we were there on preview night), they could have just been the sort of slips of the tongue that people make in conversation. Creative Cauldron is one of my favorite venues and this work was well suited to its intimacy. I am glad to see them back.

RennFest: One of my friends is a big Renaissance Festival fan. I haven’t been to a Rennfast in many years, but thought it would be fun to go with her. So we did that a couple of weeks ago. It was rather crossed, but manageable. We spent much of our time shopping, which is not really something I need to do. But I did get a new hat, a stuffed dragon (with a Washington Nationals theme, and a wonderful piece of blown glass depicting a shark eating a mermaid. I also bought some fudge. (My friend bought a quilt as a baby gift, a hat, and probably something else I’ve forgotten about.) I should note that our hats came from the shop where the daughter of another friend was working. We also watched a show by The Danger Committee, who combine comedy with knife and axe throwing, which I enjoyed more than I expected to. We also had plenty of people watching and a stop for lunch. Overall, I enjoyed it but I don’t need to go again for five or more years.

Glenstone: Glenstone is a contemporary art museum in Maryland. It is free, but hard to get tickets to. They release them on the first of the month for two months out and they tend to sell out in a few minutes. Anyway, the MIT Club of DC got a block of tickets, so I was finally able to go. There is a huge pavilion, with several rooms of interesting art, of which my favorite piece was one that involved a number of rusted beams collapsed into a hole. The major attraction was a temporary exhibit of work by Faith Ringgold, including both paintings and the quilts she is more famous for. The quilts are particularly wonderful. All the MIT Club people gathered for lunch and conversation. There are also several walking paths around the grounds, though the weather was iffy, so I didn’t do the full path. I should also note that there are a number of outdoor sculptures, including a “living” one by Jeff Koons, that gets replanted with flowers a couple of times a year. Koons is not an artist I like and I thought the piece was pretty hideous.

Remember This: I had seen an earlier version of this one man show starring David Strathiirn, but a friend wanted to go and I was willing to see it again. It tells the story of Jan Karski, who was a member of the Polish underground during World War II. He was smuggled into a Jewish ghetto and a concentration camp and tried to report his observations to Western governments. He was able to speak to high ranking government officials, who basically blew him off. It’s a powerful work. It has closed here, but will be playing in Chicago in November and will be available on film later on.

Ari Shapiro and Alan Cumming: I went to see a cabaret show by Alan Cumming and Ari Shapiro at the Kennedy Center a little over a week ago. They started with a medley of Broadway duets - Bosom Buddies (from Mame), You’re the Top (from Anything Goes), Anything You Can Do (from Annie Get Your Gun) and The Grass is Always Greener (from Woman of the Year). They told various stories including their coming out stories and stories about same sex marriage. Ari sang Laughing Matters (a 1990’s Bette Midler song from the off-Broadway musical When Pigs Fly) and Alan sang Taylor the Latte Boy. All in all, it was a very entertaining show.

Memorial Service: Last Saturday was the memorial service for Merrilee and Bob Pallansch, who died about a week apart back in January. A few other storytellers were there and two of them told stories. Bob was well-known in the area for repairing brass instruments and played tuba and various tuba-adjacent instruments, including the serpent and the ophicleide (or, as one of their daughters said, the awfulcleide). So there were a few pieces played by a brass ensemble at the beginning. Anyway, I think their family took some comfort from the good turnout (despite the crappy weather, which made the people coming from Maryland late getting there).

Gettysburg: Last Sunday I drove up to Gettysburg for a Loser brunch and battlefield tour. The food at the Appalachian Brewing Company was pretty good. The tour included the Eternal Light Peace Memorial and views from Little Round Top. We were also supposed to go to the cemetery, but it was very cold and blustery out and getting late so we skipped that. As a result of running late, the traffic getting home was very heavy and it took me nearly an hour longer getting back than it had driving up there.

Used Bookstore Run: I had an appointment to take my car in for service on Thursday, so I was already in Manassas and stopped in at McKay. I got rid of 23 books and came home with 9 new ones (and still have $9 in trade credit left). So it was a successful trip.

Metro Note: Aside from the minimal service right now, since Metro has pulled all of the 7000 series cars out of service after a derailment a couple of weeks ago, I ran into a different problem on Friday when I went to Crystal City to have lunch with a friend. Namely, my SmarTrip card wouldn’t work to let me out of the turnstile. And there was no station manager around. I waited about 10 minutes and finally decided the only thing to do was jump the turnstile! It turns out that the new turnstiles can’t read old cards, so I have to go to Mero Center to exchange my old cards. (I do have two of the newer series cards I can use, but this is a pain in the neck.) You can supposedly transfer cards on—line but I think my old card is registered under my work email address I no longer have access to. Sight.

Silly Thing I Noticed Recently: The mother in the comic strips Zits and Baby Boom is the same person. I guess Jerry Scott can only draw one mom.

This is the more general catch-up entry. Yeah, I know.

Celebrity Death Watch: Bob Hoskins was an actor. So was Efrem Zimbalist, Jr., who people of my generation will associate with The FBI. I want, however, to highlight Al Feldstein, the editor of MAD, a magazine that was a significant influence on my childhood. My father bought it, allegedly for my brother and me, but we noticed that the fold-in was always done by the time we got it. I understand that there is a game of 43-man squamish going on right now in his memory.

Yiddish Poetry Game: I like Yiddish (though I speak little of it) and like poetry, so I thought this special event put on by the Jewish Study Center would be fun. And it was. The idea is that everyone got two cards with poetry cues and two cards with Yiddish words (with English definitions). You matched a word to a cue and offered that up as something for people to use as a rule in writing a poem. For example, my combination led to "an acrostic on the word shtetl." Then everybody had time to write a poem using at least three of the rules. The results were interesting and I could definitely see playing this again. (Note that one can, of course, play the poetry game just in English.)

Business Trip: After getting back from Northlands, I had to leave for a business trip to Los Angeles early the next morning. There was the obligatory jog across ORD when my first flight was delayed and I had less than 15 minutes to make my connection. But things worked out okay. The design review I was there for was successful for the most part, but exhausting. The highlight of the trip was getting to see an aircraft assembly line, which had nothing to do with the actual purpose of being there. But, I suppose, it’s a lot tougher to show off software development.

Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival: I always swear I will not spend money at the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival, which is the largest fiber festival in the Eastern United States. (Think of it as a cross between a county fair and the world’s largest yarn store.) And, inevitably, there is irresistible temptation. In this case, it was the Tsock Tsarina Shark Week sock kit. It will be challenging, given my history with sock knitting, otherwise known as failing to complete a pair of socks . But some day I will master these.

Rose Valley Storytelling House Concert: After leaving the sheep and alpaca and rabbits (oh, my!), I drove to Philadelphia to go to a storytelling house concert at the home of Megan Hicks and Jack Abgott. It was an excellent evening. Kitty Hailey told amusing stories about her experiences as a private investigator. Robin Bady did an excerpt from her anti-bullying story, "Every Day is Basil Houpis Day," which left me wanting to hear the rest of the story. And Tom Stamp performed a mix of unusual literary stories. There was a great mix of types of material and the audience was responsive and engaged (and mingled well before the show, during intermission, and afterwards). It was definitely worth dealing with I-95. (Note, however, that I stayed up that way overnight. I’m not quite crazy enough to drive up and back the same day.)

Three Penny Opera: I drove back from Philadelphia on Sunday morning so I could see Three Penny Opera at Signature Theatre in the afternoon. Setting the story in the present day was an interesting decision – and not entirely effective, in my opinion. For example, having people snapping cell phone photos of Macheath on the gallows is mildly amusing but doesn’t really add to anything. The performances were more effective. Nastascia Diaz was excellent as Jenny. I also want to note Erin Driscoll as Polly Peachum. I was less enthralled by Mitchell Jarvis as Macheath, though I suspect that has more to do with the character’s inherent smarminess than with his performance per se. All in all, I’d say the production is not entirely successful, but I am not sure anybody could do this show in an entirely satisfying way.

Michael Reno Harrell: Storyteller and folk musician Michael Reno Harrell was passing through town last night and Ellouise Schoettler was offering a house concert featuring him. There was a small group, so it ended up being a "sit around the kitchen table and swap stories" type of evening instead. That was still a good time.

A Brief Note on Why Women Should Run Everything: I had a meeting today. It ran from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. with no break. Only a man would schedule things that way.